High Altitude Balloon Launch

Hi Everybody,

We (BinarySpace) are doing another High Altitude Balloon Launch on the 17th of March. Everybody is invited to join us for the day to launch and chase the balloon. This time we will be launching from Leeukop Farm Airfield in Deneysville, Free State.

A writeup regarding our previous launch can be found here: https://www.binaryspace.co.za/?p=499

Tom van den Bon of BinarySpace writes about the Mission – Binary 02:

It’s been a few years since our last launch and we want to get back into it doing regular launches during 2018. The mission for the launch is to succesfully launch and recover the payload. Expected burst height is around 30km. The payload will contain an aprs tracker and 1 or more cameras. This is a sponsored launch and part of the mission is to obtain video with a logo near ‘edge of space’. Another part of the mission is to test our new ground station equipment. We have been hard at work putting together some mobile tracking units making use of Raspberry PI’s and SDR dongles.

We have also reached out to the Sasolburg Amateur Radio Club (ZS4SRK) to join us with the tracking and recovery of the payload. As usual all amateur radio enthusiasts everywhere are invited to come play with us :)

The APRS tracker (144.800Mhz) onboard the balloon will be using callsign ZR6MUG-11

The balloon should also be trackable here: https://aprs.fi/#!call=a%2FZR6MUG-11&timerange=3600&tail=3600

Please also share to any Amateur Radio Groups/Clubs

Payload is estimated to be around 600g-700g. We are using a 600g balloon (white). We are estimating a 3 hour mission from launch to recovery.

We also have 2 challenges going:

(1) First person to recover the payload gets a box of craft beer

(2) Footage of the Payload coming down will be rewarded with 2 boxes of craft beer

Primary launch window: March 17 2018 – 6:00 (we start setting up somewhere between 5:00 and 5:20)

Telegram group used for tracking and comms: https://t.me/joinchat/AjadWA9ghb6YIEL13YdQAQ

Launch Site: Leeukop Farm Airfield.: 26* 52’ 02.44”S 28* 04’18.51”E

https://goo.gl/maps/dHyqU2pbgeD2

Fun Facts:

This will be the 2nd BinarySpace High Altitude Balloon Launch

This will be the 2nd launch using the Trackduino APRS tracker

This will be the 1st launch at the Deneysville Airport

This will be the 1st launch utilizing new homebrew tracking equipment

Everybody is welcome to come and join us :)